Saturday, May 14, 2005

This is a very worrying development for Creative Commons. CISAC, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (which brings together 207 authors' societies from 109 countries); has published an article heavily criticising Creative Commons. They are quoting Emma Pike's article against CC, and pretty much using the same FUD that has been already used against the movement, you know, we are all a bunch of hobbyists and bored academics; and "real" creators who want to profit from their work should not use any sort of CC licences.

I still don't know for sure where the animosity from these people really comes from, but I have my suspicions. It seems evident that the most vocal attackers of the Creative Commons model (and of open licences in general) are the intermediaries, such as the collecting agencies. These societies rest on the assumption that they are the only representatives of creators, and their profits rely on this idea being maintained. But what happens if creators take a more involved approach about their copyright? Then the middle-men lose their role. If we all become publishers, then the reliance on collecting societies vanishes. Am I being naive? Probably, I'm just an academic, so my opinion doesn't really count in the real world, according to these people.